


I have taken to you (like grass to water)

by NewWonder



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewWonder/pseuds/NewWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John knows Sherlock by his fingertips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I have taken to you (like grass to water)

**Author's Note:**

> One of those 5+1 thingies, just for the hell of it. Warning: sadly unbetaed, metaphors all around.

_1\. The ghost of your touch_

John knows Sherlock by his fingertips.

It is hard to comprehend the ever-astounding mystery that is Sherlock Holmes' mind; John doesn't even try to. He's no Mycroft and no Moriarty, and, since Sherlock's experience with these fine gentlemen tends to be just short of disastrous, John finds it very easy to not care a fig.

He's got something else, though; a string, just like those on Sherlock's violin, only finer, more attuned. Somehow this string seems to be visible to virtually everybody – a soft hum, a vibration between John's skin and Sherlock's. It only gets more prominent with time, with each shared kiss and each passing touch, until people start speaking to John while addressing Sherlock and vice-versa, until John is sure he will never feel whole again without Sherlock by his side.

Once, he would never have thought. Once, he used to ponder and doubt. Now, he knows: Sherlock isn't heartless nor is he emotionless, and every single one of his emotions seems to thrum through John's nerves, like it is not only flat and bed that they share, but also bloodstream and nervous system.

So John learns, studies the body that feels like a continuation of his now, until he is positive he could write a thesis on it, or draw it entirely from memory. It doesn't even matter that he has always been piss-poor at art; his hands know the lines and the curves of this body backwards and forwards, have it memorised in Pavlovian motions, and sometimes, when Sherlock isn't at home and it feels like a limb torn from John, a phantom ache that is the unnaturally Sherlock-less space, John traces him in the air with his fingertips – wild locks and smiling lips and familiar, beloved body almost there, alost alive under his hands.

He knows the texture and the feel, the temperature and the density of hair growth, he remembers the reactions he can coax by touching, pressing, twisting and scraping even better than the familiar recoil of a gun in his hand. He knows the twitch of Sherlock's foot in his hands (it turns out Sherlock's ticklish, which fact John abuses gleefully), the softness of the inner side of his knees, the rough feel of his pubic hair (which is nearly ginger, surprisingly), the coolness of the skin on his neck, the warm, silky slide of his curly mane against John’s palm. John's skin bears the knowledge of Sherlock's gasps and shivers, and there is not a single nook or cranny on Sherlock's body that John has not traced, has not known, by his fingertips or his lips.

And it certainly doesn't hurt that Sherlock is always, always eager to learn, too.

 

_2\. Inhale_

There still are days on which Sherlock smells like cigarettes.

On days like these, John smells like disappointment. So when the boredom gets unbearable, Sherlock gets up and goes to bother John until he snaps and rushes out of the flat – or throws him against the wall and shags him silly, the latter distinctly preferable. Either way, the boredom dissolves effectively, be it in the bitterness of a row that always feels like a string snapping on the violin, like a promising murder that doesn't hold challenge for more that two minutes; or in the heady rush of hormones in his bloodstream, in the still-strange, ever-overwhelming feeling of the infinite power he holds over John – of a willing surrender that somehow goes both ways. This is weird, this is frightening, this is so wonderful Sherlock cannot imagine his life without having this any more.

When John is angry, he smells like gunpowder. When John is resigned, he smells like disinfectant and talc. When John is excited and enthusiastic, hanging on Sherlock's every word and showering him with praise, he smells like champagne and the chill of London streets at night. When John is sleepy and pliant, soft and warm under his hand, he smells like milk and honey, and on mornings like these, Sherlock always devours whatever meal John puts in front of him, in fear lest he devour John himself, with him smelling like an ultimate treat and all. When John is hot and hard for him, hungry and horny, he smells like the best cigarettes and bodily musk, the one smell that Sherlock loves on him best. He licks that fragrance off John's skin, never able to get enough, and John, his ever-frustrating John never stops smelling intoxicating enough to make Sherlock's busy mind short-circuit.

Sherlock wonders, idly, whether John knows of the unique qualities of his bodily scent while John lazily pets his hair, wrung out and ready to fall asleep.

Suddenly John leans down and presses his nose into Sherlock's hair, tangled and damp with sweat. Sherlock bristles, startled.

"Sorry–hey, I'm sorry," John presses a smile into Sherlock's scalp – is he laughing? why is he laughing? is he laughing at Sherlock? Sherlock huffs, offended, turns his head away, "It's just – the way you smell."

"Are you saying I am in a need of a shower?" he demands briskly, affronted.

"No, no, very much not so. You smell – extraordinarily. I love it," John inhales, once again, and makes a sound that leaves Sherlock a little breathless.

"What do I smell like, then?" he inquires casually. This is relevant data, after all.

"Like – you, I guess. Like nothing else. Your very own brand of delicious."

And John drifts off to sleep with his nose buried in Sherlock's hair.

 

_3\. Take me in and look some more_

Sherlock looks like a statistical improbability.

Sherlock _is_ an improbability, a bloody miracle that suddenly appeared out of thin air one blessed January day, whacking John over the head and sucking him into a vortex of gunshots, crime scenes and _life_ , miraculously colourful once again. Sherlock is the white of his skin and the black of his hair, the pink of his lips and the ever-changing green-grey-blue of his eyes; Sherlock is a Dali masterpiece and a Poe mystery. John thinks him striking and then John thinks him beautiful, but before it all John thinks him fascinating. John is a cobra and Sherlock is a melody, wind and water and John is the beholder forever enchanted by the dance of the elements, uncontainable and untamed; Sherlock is the light and John is the moth, and if Sherlock is the most damned dashing light to ever shine since the Word of the Lord, – all the worse for John, then. Sherlock looks posh and then he looks emaciated, Sherlock looks dapper and then he looks unkempt, but no matter what he's dressed in, no matter how long ago he ate or slept or brushed his hair, he always draws John's gaze to him, like John is a sunflower and Sherlock's the sun.

Sometimes, rarely, John wonders what he looks like to Sherlock. He's never been particularly self-conscious, and he's never compared his looks to the dazzling brilliance that is Sherlock Holmes, but some days, when Sherlock gives him this look, like John's a case that holds the biggest mystery in the world, John cannot help but ask himself just what it is Sherlock sees in front of him.

Of course, given that these looks more often than not tend to end up in violent shagging, John rather thinks he can guess the answer.

 

_4\. The symphony of your breath_

In, out. Rise, fall. Soft, measured breaths _(thank god you don't snore)_ , soft, rhythmical beating of your heart under my palm.

A fascinating, wondrous device, a human heart, – never quieting down, never resting, pounding non-stop to keep you with me. Even my mind, churning with thoughts and restless as it is, goes into sleep mode sometimes, but the heart goes on, very nearly unnoticeable and so tediously, so desperately crucial.

...For some reason something about that line feels vaguely familiar. A cultural reference, probably? Note to self: ask John, information optional.

I listen to your heart with my palm and capture the soft melody of your breath in a record. I might make music out of it later, adopt it for bow and strings and wood, a pure essence of your life and presence by my side. You will listen to it sipping tea in your armchair; you won't ever know it is you my violin sings, but you will smile and say it is amazing.

Of course it will be amazing. It's you, after all.

Your voice is–peculiar, too. It is not exceptionally aesthetically pleasing and not remotely melodious enough to make you a decent singer, but it never fails to evoke a response in me, one that the finest opera records and the best live performances can scarcely compare to. Sometimes it feels like home and hope, sometimes it is the saving thread that leads me out of the labyrinth of jumbled data and evidence clogging my mind, sometimes it's my sole support, the lifeline I cling to when all the rest is gone, and even when it's annoying, nagging me about the petty details of life, I never truly wish it away. Surely you know I never want you away, do you? You're mine, like this violin and this scull, like this job and this city, and without you by my side, I am hindered and bereft. It was strange to have you and stranger to lose you, and that latter particular experience is one I never wish to revisit.

Tell me, do you hold as much fascination with my voice as I do with yours? Oh no, I'll never ask you that outright – best analyze your body, it rarely lies the way your mouth can. Why is it you always shiver when I whisper in your ear, why is it your eyes glaze over when I set my voice to low and rumbling in our bed? Is it a response to the intimacy of the tone, or to its vocal qualities? Hmm. Interesting; must remember to investigate further.

...The line feels familiar again; distracting. You turn over to face me, mumble my name in your sleep; and I know, just like I've known so many times before, that while Stravinsky is elegant and Paganini is exquisite, the music of my name on your lips is the one I will be carrying with me when the world is dark and full of noise.

...Yet another somehow familiar line, and it's decided – John is in for a grand questioning when he wakes up. Which is... now.

 

_5\. The taste of my heart_

When you kiss me like that, it seems sometimes like you hold my heart between your lips.

You could eat it, I guess, so easily; chew it up until there's nothing left but bloodied clumps. Swallow it, devour, digest, holding me all the while until it dissolves. You never do.

My heart is back in my breast where it belongs, beating wildly like a caught bird, while I'm trying to catch my breath that escapes me instead; thundering desperately, painfully, as if poisoned by your saliva. I keep waiting for you to not let it go, one day.

On the thought of it, my sick, silly heart skips a bit – high on the drug of your flavour, stupid as the rest of me (you never fail to point it out, don't you?). It longs, you see, aches with the desire to disappear between your lips. My heart doesn't belong to me anymore, and neither does my tongue that lies for you so easily, my eyes that can see only you, wouldn't see anything but you even if there was a sun burning in the room right next to you, my body that glides to you unconsciously and naturally, like a stream to the river, like iron to a magnet.

If you never gave it back, this stupid heart of mine... if you kept it as a part of yourself, so a part of me would be with with you everywhere you go...

The thought is a bit scary, a lot exhilarating. Like living with you. Like loving you.

There's one thing I know, though: if you never let it go, like you want to every single time you taste my heart on your lips – I can see it in your eyes, because that's what I want, too, – it would be right where it belongs, in its proper place.

 

_+1. Remember_

"–The Earth goes round the Sun," Sherlock finishes, not even looking up from the microscope.

It's the shocked silence that makes him raise his head, lift his eyes to John's face, disbelieving and slightly slack-jawed.

"–You remember," John states, finally.

"Obviously," Sherlock supplies loftily. "Now, if you are finished with your rabble..."

"Oh, uh, yes, just – don't mind me," John hurries to answer, then hums a little, confusedly, and finally enquires: "Um– a cuppa then, maybe?"

"Yes, please," Sherlock retorts impatiently, and before he knows it there's a cup in front of him, steaming with a promise of warmth. He lifts it absent-mindedly, engrossed in an investigation, sips the tea – hot enough but not scalding, sweet enough but not overly so, and thinks, not for the first time, that John turned out to be quite a useful addition to his routine.

Said John is staring at him so intently he might bore holes into him any next moment.

"What is it?" Sherlock snaps finally, holding the mug to his mouth with both hands, nose down in the cup.

"Oh, it's– nothing, really. I'm sorry, I must have been staring. Go back to your – experiment, or whatever," John fidgets a bit. Sherlock frowns:

"I can see that you are trying to obscure something. Are you trying to obscure something? Why are you trying to obscure something?" he is confused. Surely John would know that there is no use in concealing anything from Sherlock, why even bother?

"I – don't think you'll understand," John's smile is gentle and wistful. Sherlock frets, insulted.

One look at his face, and John yields, averts his eyes, opens his mouth:

"It's just that – _you do remember_ ," his lips are smiling around the words, and his eyes are warm, warmer than the tea, warmer than the fireplace, warmer than the sun itself.

Sherlock stares at him, that shakes his head, brusquely:

"You seem to be right, surprisingly, for once. I do not understand."

He returns to his experiment. It's easier to concentrate, somehow, with the tea warm in his belly, with the sun watching his back.

**Author's Note:**

> Now can you guess the references in Pt. 4? Bah, of course you can. :D


End file.
